Do I need to be on twitter? “I run my own small practice”
The first blog post in this series explored ten non-business reasons for being on twitter.
Many of the hundreds of accountants I follow on twitter clearly enjoy the non-business side of it. Indeed, I’m sure that many of the accountants who find twitter useful from a business perspective first became familiar with it by virtue of the non-business uses. And that’s a key lesson. If you are thinking of twitter as a quick-fix marketing solution, take my advice and don’t bother. You will waste time and effort that could have been better spent more productively elsewhere.
So to answer the question, my simple answer is ‘NO’. Contrary to all the social media hype, you do not NEED to be on twitter. It MIGHT be beneficial though IF you:
- Have EXISTING clients who are active on twitter; – and, even better if they will advocate you on twitter to their followers
- Have a clear niche that is distinct from all of the other sole practitioners and smaller firms;
- Are willing to engage with people on twitter (there’s little point in simply posting promotional messages)
- Can RESIST the temptation to try to gain thousands of ‘followers’ – this is time consuming displacement activity, it doesn’t generate business.
- Can decide on a realistic strategy to build business and referrals over time through your activity on twitter
- Are willing to learn WHAT is worthwhile and what is NOT worth doing on twitter
- Want to have some fun – the first blog post in this series refers
If you run a small practice and have found twitter useful, please share your experiences as comments below.
NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. One of them will be right for you. Full details here.
2 Responses to “Do I need to be on twitter? “I run my own small practice””
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Hi Mark,
I was pretty obsessed with twitter as a source of news, bad puns and a general time hole long before using it for business.
When I recently started up in practice on my own though I got my first major piece of work through it, which seemed pretty amazing. What I found works goes against what you normally say, which is to just follow loads and loads of people. The default settings are that the person you are following will receive an email saying x is following you along with a bio. In a way it’s not that different to direct mailing. If that person is trying to get round to finding a new accountant at that time they’ll look at my website and maybe get into contact.
Inevitably, I will have to slowly unfollow a significant proportion because they might be just posting links to their website constantly or generally being tedious. But not a serious issue.
The other side where I have found it really valuable is for networking with other accountants and related professionals. For someone who finds entering a room full of strangers terrifying it’s a really easy way to get talking to people. Sometimes fairly important and influential people.
@TimCaprica
[...] Looking back I clearly remember thinking at first that it was an incredible time sink and likely waste. Many in business still see it that way. In the interim, others have come along and improved upon Twitter – or rather its conceptual roots – through the development of any number of Twitter-esque services. The ones that stand out to me are Yammer and Chatter, both of which are inward facing but with the potential to reach out to much broader audiences. As I was thinking through what this might mean in 2012 I revisited Mark Lee’s latest post on the general topic of Twitter. [...]